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8月7日 It's about blog-O'clock, I believe.And what to blog about, indeed? Actually, there's really not that much. Life's been fairly quiet lately - almost entirely consisting of working all week, and drinking and relaxing all weekend. A rather straightforward existence...right? Of course not - not being me, anyhow.
The weekend just gone was quite a lot of fun. And a big one, at that. Friday night saw Laura and I teaming up with Andrew (H.), Ros, Katie (Slutbiscuit), Chloe and my very own little Angelcakes (Tom S.) to hit a few pubs. We started at the Belgian Beer Cafe, which is always excellent, for a few Bellevue Kriek's. Great beer. For those of you who have been deprived of this ambrosia, it's a sour-cherry infused beer - not very sweeet, and with a pleasant tart aftertaste. Marvellous stuff, indeed. The music was actually quite good, a kind of electro-heavy D&B set originally, and then some more conventional stuff later in the evening. I managed to score myself a free beer, as I chanced to find myself talking to an off-duty bartender when I went to grab drinks. Most of us drank beer, Laura drank Frangelico and Katie, Pernod.
We headed from there on to Carnegie's, of all places. Now I know it's a far cry from the nicest or most elegant night spot in town, but it was right over the road, and we could hear the strains of one of our (Tom and my) favourite songs drifting out (Supertylin', by Groove Armada). We all piled in, and Andrew and I started the night off with a little Black Sambuca on ice - excellent plan. Tom was already looking a little drunk (ok, more than a little - it *is* Tom, after all). We the proceeded to drink an awful lot more, with the girls appreciating my reccomendation of Chambord and lemonade. Excellent drink to buy your female friends, I've found. The music, luckily, wasn't crap - we dragged a very drunken Tom up and into dancing with us to such great stuff as Smells Like Teen Spirit, Block Rocking Beats and It's My Life. Good party, drunk, stuff anyway. Andrew nearly got thrown out for throwing Katie around too much, and Tom stacked it to the floor when we tried to drag his drunken arse off the couch.
We then said goodbye to some of our crew, and Andrew, Ros, Tom and Laura & myself walked back to Tom's place. Along the way, I managed to jump rather forcefully on a treated-pine log-fence thing, propelling half of it skyward, where it remained upright as we sumbled off, pissing ourselves laughing. An awesome fluke, and many thanks to Andrew for his help! :-D
Saturday was fencing, with more beginners to be taught. I always love beginners; two of them already proudly telling me (immediately after the session) that "sabre is the best weapon". Oh, I know. :-)
The boys (Dan, Justin & Matt) came back as per usual after training, but our numbers we down with the lack of Shawn, and Paul not being at training. Matt and I had detoured briefly to quench out thirst for choc milk. I told you a litre each wasn't enough, dude! We then had some beer-battered chips and sausage rolls / pies etc. - lovingly prepared by Daniel.
Saturday night saw Laura and I meeting up with Lyn & Jordan at Box Deli, an awesome little lounge-bar in Hay St, that I'd somehow managed to miss for years! Great place, with excellent atmosphere, decent music, good cocktails and a cute bartender ;-) We went through a few cocktails each there (my pick of the night being the Mandarin & Lychee Caprioska), before heading back to ours and getting stupidly drunk. We drank all sorts of premium fortifieds - hitting the Langmeil '85 Liqeur Shiraz Tawny, the Seppelt Grand Tokay and the Vinecrest Ruby Port, amongst others. We had a few more drinks - Jordan mixed a fairly decent martini (too much vermouth for my taste), and a shot of Southern Comfort. I then passed out, sometime around 5:30. Hahaha - I'm always the master of timing :-P
Yesterday involved......sleeping til 1. That's about it. Last night we headed around to Tom's after Laura finished work, and hit the hookah there, with a glass of Rose. A nice quiet one.
That's all. Out.
Nic (xxx where applic.)
6月21日 Barossa Epicurean AdventuresAh, another adventure. Don't you just love life? I know I do. So, where to start. The ostensible reason for the expedition seems a logical place; as usual, fencing was the culprit. In fact, I'm sure I could mount a fairly convincing (if completely ridiculous) case against the sport for being the cause of much of my drinking excess :-D
Anyhow, on Friday the 9th, I got up too bloody early (after a bit of an evening preceeding) and left at around 5am to the airport (and thanks are due to Laura for hauling her arse out of bed to drive me. Not that there's much to hauyl :-) ). Anyhow, I'd left my backpack at home, and felt mildly stupid boarding a plane without hand luggage. So I grabbed a Time Magazine, a bottle of water and a copy of The Monthly. Problem solved. The plane trip sucked, and I arrived in Adelaide without incident.
The lovely J, and the far-too-talented Will met me at the airport, and together we headed off to find the luxurious 'Parkside City Motel'. Not so luxurious, as I'm sure you can imagine. Nevertheless, it seemed adequate for our needs (that is, somewhere to sleep and drink) and we settled in rather fast. By this time, it was around 11am, and we were all feeling a little hungry. Setting off into the ADelaide streetscape on the quest for food, we found we needed only to wander a block before we found what was to be our Holy Grail of pubs...'The Astor'. This place - oh my god - this place, has $10 meals. And fucking awesome $10 meals, all sorts. T-Bone steaks, garlic prawns, salt and pepper squid, tandoori chicken wraps - whatever. We fucking loved the place. In fact, once Jeremy arrived, we returned there for dinner and drinks. Next came the bottle shop run - at the oddly-named Arabian Steed Bottleshop - and a night of drinking. Jeremy and Will threw up. Fucking lightweights :-D
A few days of fencing followed, with Will performing quite well in the eppe, and me pulling a 13th in the sabre. Pretty happy with that. Inevitably, the fencing each day was followed with meals at the Astor and copious amounts of drinking. Jeremy and Will threw up again. Fuck! We also saw the arrival of Laura and Sawtell over two days, to complete our little brother(sister)hood. Lots of fun was had by all, and the line-up of events included drinking in our room (guests being thrown out by management), Competition dinner at The British (great kangaroo steaks!) and hot chocolate and chocolate pudding at a quaint little hippie cafe called Elephant Walk (courtesy of the SAns).
It came time to say goodbye to the Queensland trio (Jeremy haveing left a day earlier), and Laura and I were on our own to stay on the lovely Hotel 208. Hahahahaahah; sorry, put myself in stitches. What a shithole. So, pissed off, we stayed in and watched A History of Violence; not a bad movie. The next morning, we awoke early, and headed down to the (gorgeous) Barossa Valley. Now *that* was what we were after :-D We found accommodation at a lovely little B&B, Oscar's, which gave us an entire cottage (3b/2b) to ourselves for only $120 p/n. Excellent. The rest of the day was spent bumming around the nearby wineries, where we found a decent rosé amongst other things.
The next morning, the private tour guide we'd arranged arrived at our little place, and we headed off to Saltram. There, we picked up a bottle of the Mamre Brook Riesling, and a Riedel Saltram's Glass. The other wineries and purchases were as follows:
Suffice to say, after the 10 or 20 wines tasted at each winery, we were just a tad tipsy at the end of the day. Laura was, perhaps, a little more than that tad...
The next morning, our host at the B&B insisted on taking us to *more* wineries! So, back on to:
All up, a fucking marvellous little Barossa experience.
Back in Adelaide, we spent the night at dinner with Jenn(-en-en-en), at an odd little Korean restaurant, where you could help yourself to any of the raw meat , seafood and vegetables from the buffet to cook yourself at your table. The selection ran the gamut from the normal (fillet beef, lamb, chicken) to the more exotic (kangaroo, ox tongue, cuttlefish etc.). We then grabbed two (*I* suggest three, but was overruled) bottles of port and finished them in our hotel room. We weren't nearly drunk enough, and could well have done with another bottle.
Laura and I spent the last day bumming in Caffe Amore and wandering around Adelaide. I picked up a new roleplay book, as well as finally buying copies of two great books I hadn't read for sometime - George Orwell's 1984, and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Both now added to the reading list at left. We then caught our flight back home (irritating babies wailing) and went home to see Dom, Robyn and Cal.
All up, a great trip! (as usual). Wank, wank, wank.
Nic xoxoxoxox 5月22日 *(Dramatic Drumroll)*....The FarmWell, we're back. And FUCK it was good! Plenty of fascininating (and oft-embarassing) tales to regale you lot with :-D
Day 1 saw us up bright and early, awaiting the crew at Dom's house. Being a lazy cow, she was still in bed (and asleep) when Robyn arrived. Frances then rocked up and joined our little jamboree. Next came Lex and Feakes in Alex's PIMPIN' Vitara. Decked with all the necessary gear for a funtrip - spud guns, mil-issue cams etc. - they arrived be-sunnied, and looking for a good time. Frances and I gathered with those two around the back of the 4WD, whilst Dom and Robyn headed off for more food. In these tortured moments was born..."Go'n fuck you up!" , which was shouted loudly, recorded on Frances' phone and hurled at passing cars and demented old ladies that only water the tops of their rosebushes.
We then headed off for the farm, or rather, to a Gull station that housed the Rae's quad bike. The realtively simple task of loading the quad onto the trailer we'd brought was, of course, delayed. We took the opportunity to pick up some snacks and refreshments, whilst a mechanic looked at it (solving our hours of puzzling in about 3 minutes :-P ). Chips and ginger beer are good.
We finally arrived, and after quickly transferring various foodstuffs inside, Lex, Feakes and I grabbed the spud cannon and headed out in the (hastily repaired, for the first time of many) Mini Moke. With Lex driving, Feakes loading and me Firing, we quickly managed to miss our target a number of times. Nevertheless, the cannon gave of a satisfyingly-mortar-like "thwump" as we fired it, which had us all giggling like schoolgirls. Nasty schoolgirls who are on crack and wielding butchers knives. We also found 'Arnold', as sheep skull to affix to the front of our new vehicle of death (and the like). Apparently, we found out, the spud cannon sounded like a rifle to the carteaker, and so was quickly banned. :-( Meanwhile the girls rode horses.
Wellsy, Bob, Yey and Sarah arrived next, followed by Chris, Glen, Seng and Tania. We got to making the goon punch immediately upon Bob's arrival (Ah, Yanchep memories for those who were there... :-D ). This time, there were a few more ingredients, and it seems we perfected the recipe that one step more. 'Chateau du Bitchpisse 05/06' was born. Dom, in her blog (http://spaces.msn.com/dominiquerae888/blog/cns!9BA74BB77FD4EF75!1409.entry), notes the ingredients, and makes the astute observation that the 05/06 vintage will perform well with some short-to-medium-term cellaring. Orders can still be taken, for those interested. :-D
We all ate Glen's awesome pasta for dinner (although most of us had eaten even more pasta as an afternoon snack - thanks girls!), and then went on to play Circle of Death (Leaver's Variant) until some time late in the evening. People disappeared to various rooms (and liasons), and a good time was had by all. Except Lex - he was fucked :-D
The next morning, my attempts at doing my best for Lex by awaking him with a beer were found to be in vain, so I simply hit a few myself. By 10, the Calsta (.50) arrived, and completed the farm crew. The day ahead saw a picnic (with Tania's masterful ham-folding showing up my salami rolling...sounds great, huh?) down at the dam with much food (chickens etc. courtesy of Seng) and bitchpiss, along with Wellsy's 5L keg of Heineken we didn't finish the night before. For the record, avoid them - it poured nothing but frothy shit, to the point where a glass was rendered ineffective.
The day then turned to horse riding and quad biking, with the Moke being out of action/out of fuel/generally fucked. By now, the gearstick swing was so bad on the Moke, that a small child could have skipped over it. Yey stacked it off the horse, rather anticlimactically - according to Seng, and came up with some lovely grazes and bruises to show for it. Dom then had the pleasure of chasing the panicked animal down. Laura, Frances and myself each had a little ride of Cartouche next, before retiring to the house.
That night, drinking games began in earnest. They continued for some time, before the music started and the....dancing began! Lex showed his truly magnificent disco-moves to the Numa Numa Song and Can't Touch This. Wellsy busted out with Big Butts. The night quickly degenerated, with Shirtless O'Clock coming earlier than usual, and Dom even changing bras to match the rest of the girls :-D The bra ninja struck at random, Lex gave an interview as a shadowy assassin, and I got...well...knocked down by Tubthumping. Later, the sensible members retired for sleep, or other pursuits, and Laura woke up. Just in time to catch the end of a fantastic game of crotch-touching and the like. Marvellous. Unfortunately, all footage of that particular event has been erased...thanks bitch! Lol.
The next morning we awoke relatively early, cleaned up, fucked the quad bike and left the farm. All who were left (Frances, Yey, Cal, Dom, Robyn, Laura and myself) headed in to Toodyay for Devonshire tea (or chips and gravy - which Yey drank...) before heading home for Mother's Day.
All in all, another splendid adventure to add to the group history. Another notch in the bedpost for our collective body of experiences. Another wanky summary by me.
Love to one and (almost) all,
Nic xoxoxoxoxox
4月27日 Ok, ok - so life's slow!Not much happening, I'm afraid. That is, apart from being *hounded* by people to update this blog. Gah! Fine....
I went to Melbourne. Yeah, last weekend and early this week I was in Melbourne at AFF Circuit #1 (fencing comp) - and performing in an utterly SHITHOUSE manner. On the piste, that is. Fencing aside, the competition was thoroughly awesome! At least, the post- (and pre-) competition drinking was great. First night I arrived late from the airport, to find the crew already waiting in the bar of our dodgy backpacker's (with a pint!) for me. Excellent manners! The accommodation was, you've no doubt gathered, a little on the 'rough' side. If by a little, I meant alot, then the previous statement would approach some measure of truth. As an anecdote - the 'rooms' (one could prefer the term 'kulos') were furnished (another loose term) with those dodgy prints in plastic frames at Red-Dot-esque stores. But wait, it gets better; said wall hangings were actually *screwed* to the wall with gigantic pieces of hardware, lest someone would want to steal one. Yeah, that'll happen. The scene was made complete with the obligatory stained walls and well-worn carpet. Never again does J organise accommodation (sorry darl! And anyway, that's probably a blatant lie - you're actually the only one organised enough to do it. So thanks!) - 3 nights for $175..... Hmmm...
We finally moved on that night to numerous other spots (most notably the Celtic Club and the deli-cum-bottleshop on the corner) before returning to the 'Roo Bar' at the backpacker's. We then retired to my and J's room, where we were faced with the preplexing puzzle of lacking a bottle opener for Jeremy's wine. Eager to solve such a conundrum, I came up with the ingenious solution of pushing the cork *into* the bottle, rather than trying to prise it out. Armed with the best implement available - the knife off Will's multi-tool - I pushed the cork down into the bottle: spraying wine all over my face in the process! Will, in his ineffable wisdom, then subtitle the wine 'avec cork'. One bottle later and we were thoroughly hammered. I went to bed, and J spent quite some time throwing up before joining me. I think Will and Dave were actually being mildly sensible!
Day 2 we awoke far too early, and headed to the venue in order to be able to see Dave off (as he'd stupidly promised Denise he'd be there). He was, naturally, roped in to refereeing a few bouts before he could leave :-D (armed with his farewell card from the crew and a bottle of red I'd picked up for him). We said some hellos to various fencers, and then decided we'd go for a wander. Checked out Federation Square (odd, gay busker in a purple unitard chasing skaters...hehehe...), and then wandered over to the Melbourne Central Lion Hotel for Alison's 24th. Played pool, met some of her mates and drank a fair bit. We then joined forces with her friends and headed back to the backpackers, but the bar was closed cos some idiot was running an hour and a half late, and reception fucked us around, so Alison's crew left. As Murphy's law would have it, the bar opened up 10 minutes later :-P. We simply drakn a fair bit, and met up with Sarah, before the getting conned into entering a pool tournament. Now, as everyone knows, I can't play pool to save myself, so a first-round elimination was no great suprise. Although, to my credit, I put up a bit of a fight, only having two balls left. More drinking ensued, with the rest of the crew bailing, and me meeting up with some rather odd backpackers and sharing cigars and stories.
Day 3 was fencing day. I did poorly as noted. In fact, with Justin Boughton and Sam Wells also being eliminated earlier than expected for various reasons, the three of us (all ranked top 10 in the country, fuck!) decided to hit the pub. First stop was Toto's on Lygon St for a quality pizza before heading back to the Melbourne Central Lion for the drinking half of the arvo/night. Waht started as sociable drinking, quickly degraded into a competition - with Justin challenging me to a bit of a drinking match (Jo was also supposedly involved, but was gone enough after a few heavy cocktails). 5 pints, 6 or so mixed-drinks (or girly cocktails for Justin - heheheeh sorry dude!) and 5-odd shots down we were still arguing over who was winning. Then, as luck would have it, Alex Donaldson (Technical Director of the AFF) arrived. With such a unique opportunity to enlist his skills of arbitration available, we turned to him for confirmation of a victor. That is, right after Justin's proposed 'boat race'. So, 3 shots of black Sambuca in front of each of us, we went at it as fast as we possibly could. The result - Alex declared a draw: both of us had spilled so much of the stuff on our faces and the table that it was impossible to determine a victor. Much manly hugging, back-slapping and 'I love you man'-ing ensued. I don't remember walking home, but I recall ending up in the bar downstairs again, until about 4ish. Suffice to say I beat Justin!
The final day saw me ever-so-rudely awoken by J, not 5 hours after I had gone to bed (read: passed out half on the actual bed). She gently reminded me that, not only were Will and herself leaving at 10, but that checkout was at 9. I distincly remember thinking: 'Shit'. So, I dragged my under-hydrated, terribly hungover carcass out of bed (after the previous 11-or-so hours of drinking, I'll never claim I don't get hangovers again!) and threw all my crap into my various pieces of luggage (in no discernable order). We went downstairs, I bought a 1.5 litre bottle of water and started on that, and killed 45-odd minutes until J and Will's taxi arrived. AFter some teary goodbyes (kinda), I found myself on my own and desperately after sleep. So I walked down to the lounge bar and passed out on the couch for a few hours. I then spent the rest of the day sitting in the sun in the foyer, reading Darwin's The Voyage of The Beagle and meeting some rather interesting German backpackers. Played a little chess with one of them, got beaten (really wasn't my time for strategising, it would seem) and went back to sleep. Finally, I caugth a bus to the airport (and spent the whole time talking to the bus driver about all kinds of crap) before grabbing the flight home. On the plane I met a rather interesting couple, with some rather interesting conversation to match - which helped kill the time.
Anyhow, it was another fantastic trip, marred only by a shocking result. I think I may well see myself drop out of the Top 10 Open rankings until another decent result. Heads up for Adelaide in June. Maybe I'll actually attend training this time....hmmm....
Much love to all,
Nic xoxoxox
P.S. And no, no housewarmings yet - sorry to all those who keep asking! Soon...maybe...!
3月14日 The Big Move (and other day-to-day mysteries of Nic)Why hello.
Life's certainly been interesting lately. The Big Move went well, and Laura and I are settling in to our new home nicely. We've already had a number of house guests, and the feedback seems to be all positive. On that note, if you haven't seen the new place yet, feel free to drop by. Just message me :-) We have a number of fantastic attractions to entice visitors over, including such mysterious artefacts as the 'glowy-plasma-ball-thingy' (which pulses in time to my stereo - cool...), a battle-honed combat sword (or 'glorified machete' to some), numerous tomes on collected topics and, most importantly, a fridge full of beer, some lovely bottles of wine and an array (well, perhaps a collection) of top-shelf spirits. Yes, yes....I imagine that will be the drawcard for the majority of you lot.
In addition to my fantastic (and overblown) exodus, life's been pretty hectic of late. As I said, plenty of guests have been over, so I've been frantically preparing dishes to serve (mostly beer-food: spicy chorizo, olive and caramalised onion ciabatta and Red Rock original crisps my favourite combo of the moment) to them, not to mention dinner for Laura and I. Fencing has taken an interesting turn, with my acquisiton of a full-time (more or less) student, Shawn Lynch. Top guy, and a committed and talented fencer - brillian combination. Looking forward to more coaching, and have had two other applications for coaching. Considering both.
Quit my job. Alas, as much fun (and as little work) as my little bookstore role provided, the boss was an arsehole. He threatened one of my friends over an easily-corrected mistake (and one that was brought on by his own actions, incidentally) - and that's just not on. So I gave him the proverbial flick. [http://army-of-12-fish.livejournal.com/1049.html]
Seems that the blog-scene has died down somewhat since the initial hype, although special mention to people like J, who keep updating. Tommy finally posted again [http://spaces.msn.com/tomsplaceinspace/blog/cns!99592F414250C264!426.entry] with just as much narcissism and ego as we've all come to expect - welcome back!
On a slightly more sentimental note - thanks for everything, everyone. Alot of people have supported me lately, even if it's just by keeping me company (Dom, Robyn etc) by catching up again (Feakes, Tommy etc) or working on stuff with me (Angelcakes etc.). So thanks to everyone.
There will be housewarming(s) soon - SO KEEP AN EYE OUT! If you don't get an invite, you probably were meant to (unless I really don't like you, so piss off), so message me.
Much love, and other such pleasantries,
Nic xoxox 2月21日 A Quick Update.Really quick, in fact.
Not much happening lately. Still working, although not getting as many shifts as I'd like. Some cool roleplays going on at the moment, plenty of parties/drinking, been seeing a lot of Dom lately, and generally chilling.
BIG NEWS
Laura and I definately have a place in 4th Ave, Mt Lawley. We move in on the 4th/5th of March. Awesome!
Keep in touch all!
Nic xox 1月30日 Results!Well, as some of you may have heard, I was struck down by a case of the dreaded and nefarious 'Delhi-Belly' som days ago. In fact, the day before my event :-P As such, due to the associated 'symptoms', I didn't quite perform to par in the individual event. Still, dosed up on many drugs, I managed a very good run in the poules, only losing one bout. The Belly had sapped my enduarance however, and I simply couldn't pull through the Direct Elimination rounds. I ended up being placed 12th and, all things considered, I was fairly pleased with my performance.
The teams today proved somewhat more positive. We had a solid victory against Singapore, before drawing Scotland to fence. We lost to the Scots wuite poorly, before watching them go down to the English. Nevertheless, we secured ourselves a Bronze medal each, and (combined with the Men's Foil win today) the Australian team came away looking quite pleased.
Tomorrow will consist of shopping and sightseeing, before a flight to Singapore tomorrow night. I think the first thing I'll do there is have a shower to finally cleanse away all the dirt and grime of India, before heading off to eat some relatively 'normal' food - like Burger King. Or sushi. Probably both. Then off to the bar to have a Sing Sling in Singapore. Should be grand.
Nic oxoxoxo
Nic oxoxo |
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